The present invention relates to a miniature printer and more particularly to a miniature type printer. Type wheel printers used in miniature electronic devices are required to be small in size. As a consequence, the fonts which can be included on a type wheel are limited. In order to emphasize certain characters, some conventional printers possess a plurality of type wheels having ink pads for applying different color inks to the type wheels. The plurality of ink pads allow the printer to print characters in different colors in order to emphasize certain characters. This is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 56-137984 and 57-100089. The prior art was effective in emphasizing desired portions of a document by enabling the same characters to be printed in different colors.
However, there are several drawbacks associated with the prior art. First, the quality of the print tends to be degraded due to the mixing of different color inks. In addition, a complicated mechanism is required so that the ink roller of each color can correspond to the character to be printed. Furthermore, the cost of the ink rollers increases due to the necessity of utilizing special ink rollers which preclude the mixing of different color inks. Finally, the number of fonts is limited by the number of colors.